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Wow, I am impressed with so many of these “independence” stories. I had it easy, I guess.
I moved out after college and marriage at age 22. Parents paid for all college expenses as education was really important to them (they graduated from college during the Depression, which wasn’t easy).
I worked every summer full-time for my own spending money. Parents did gift me some money for grad school although I could have paid myself. It took 5 years for me to finish that while working.
DH went through college in a tough major on a partial scholarship and worked 3 part-time jobs to pay most the rest. We paid off his remaining college loan our first year of marriage with us both working. Bought a new VW (no A/C) for $2,300 cash and then our first house at age 24. Both worked a decade before kids to get a good financial start which did benefit us to this day.
I realize it is much tougher for kids today with healthcare and college costs plus rental and home prices. We paid all college costs and kids are independent now.
Last edited by shamrock4; 04-14-2024 at 05:07 PM..
Anecdotal: my mother, born in 1919 to a working-class family, lived at home until marriage, but her four brothers did not. My mother-in-law, from a middle-class family of five children, was the only sibling to live at home after college. And neither my father nor my father-in-law lived at home after college/military.
My own frame of reference is "late Baby Boomer" (I'm 66). I can't think of a single high school or college classmate who lived with parents after either high school or college.
Re: the bolded: Me either. I was an outlier in that I moved out on my 18th birthday 4 months prior to HS graduation, but everyone else I knew was either fully out of the house in college, possibly with parental subsidies, or moved out immediately after graduating HS or college. It was "get a job, any job that pays the bills".
In and out of parent's home from 20 to 25. Gone for good and on my own from 25 on. My sons all graduated from college and took care of themselves from that point on.
Short answer: 22 year old for me and 20 for ms gamboolgal.
The long answer.....
I graduated High School in 1977.
Went to work in Oilfields and enrolled in 2 year program for Petroleum Technology at local Jr College.
So I worked Oilfield and went to school while living at home and graduated in 1979.
Met ms gamboolgal when she was barely 17, just a few months before I graduated from Petroleum Tech, and I was smitten from the moment I saw her.
So I stayed / lived at home while working the Oilfields and going to College to pursue a 4 year engineering degree.
But what I was really doing was chasing ms gamboolgal...
We got married 9-Jan-82 when she was 20 and I was 22. We moved out to Midland and I ended up working the Oilfields all over the world for 44 year before retiring at 62.
I never did get a 4 year degree. But I got the girl !
So I guess age 22 for me and 20 for ms gamboolgal. But there was some lean times when Oilfield would go thru the Boom/Bust cycles and our Folks helped us out in the early years and when the first baby came along. They definitely kept us from having to live very hard/poor.
We pretty well lived check to check until I went International but that was after ~24 year of working the Oilpatch domestically.
Working International as permanent married accompanied resident expats is what allowed us to save and retire comfortably. But we lived in places that no one goes to vacation at for almost 20 year in Africa. And I spent years Offshore. But it did pay well...
I guess I moved out of home to another state at 23yo, I went to university.
I had worked in construction for the preceding 4 years & used that money to pay my own way plus I worked all the time I was a student. I got one small money gift from dad at some point a couple years in, but those were the days when higher education was reasonably affordable.
I pretty much paid my way & never went back home again to stay until I hit a bad patch 20 years later. Then I moved in with mom for a few months since dad had just passed recently.
1980s: went away to college at 18 and came home for winter and summer breaks (I worked at various jobs during those periods). At 22 after graduation, got my own apartment and I have paid my own way since then.
People who went to college sometimes went home for breaks, particularly for winter holidays, and maybe summers if they had jobs. I worked the same job for 4 summers plus over the extended winter break (into mid-January).
Upon graduation, everybody I knew got a roommate and worked, went to grad school and lived with roommates in an apartment, or got married. Moving back home was pretty unheard of as most could support themselves. Nobody wanted to move home for many different reasons and it was unusual if you did. You were considered a grown adult at that point.
Moved out at 18, off to college with scholarships, and never moved back home -- just did short visits between college breaks, if I wasn't working.
I was always kinda prickly about accepting parental financial help, since my folks had three kids in college/trade school at one time, and two of us were studying expensive subjects. I went for scholarships, grants, one small loan, and several jobs to pay my own way. Tried hard to pay them back anytime they paid for something while I was still in college.
Never accepted financial assistance after graduation; figured they needed to put that money elsewhere, and I could function on my Army officer pay just fine, thanks.
Even made sure everything the folks considered my property was moved out of their house, as I did not consider them a free storage unit for my junk.
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